Folding the Caribbean

An interactive installation that allows participants to navigate and overlay virtual panoramic photography of sites in the Caribbean along economic borders, migration patterns and vectors of desire.

Utopian project conceived with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, 2001

FIELD WORK:

1. We identify Caribbean sites that share geographical and historic features but have intensely different socio-economic realities. The first two sites will be Sabana de la Mar in the Dominican Republic and Aguadilla in Puerto Rico, along the shore of the Mona Channel.

2. The production team goes to Sabana de la Mar and points a very powerful light beam across the channel towards Puerto Rico. The light is a tightly focused 7,000-watt xenon bulb not unlike those used in searchlights or lighthouses, except here the beam is static. The light is placed on the street quietly and swiftly, without warnings, fanfare, publicity or show. The set-up is intended to be low-key and last only one night.

3. As passers-by approach the scene, we will take half a dozen panoramic shots with a special digital camera. The captured scenes will show people, the light beam, the channel, the street, the surrounding buildings, cars, etc. These pictures will be converted into cubic QTVR immersive panoramas.

4. Voice interviews will be recorded with local residents. The interviews will be informal and discuss themes like migration, economic conditions, displacements of family and friends. The interviews will seek to emphasise personal stories, —people’s hopes and fears in relation to the other site across the channel.

5. The production team will go to Aguadilla in Puerto Rico and perform exactly the same tasks described above. The only difference will be that the light beam will be pointed towards the Dominican Republic.

6. Once the fieldwork has been completed the material will be edited and programmed in Rafael’s studio in Montreal.

INSTALLATION:

The installation takes place in a closed darkened room, with an ideal size of 6 x 5 x 4 metres and a minimum size of 5 x 4 x 3 m (length x width x height). On the wall that is perpendicular to the entrance there is a projection screen measuring 3 x 4 m. Five or six metres away from this screen, hanging from the ceiling, are two small LCD projectors each connected to a Macintosh G4 computer. Both projectors beam their images to the same screen.

Two projectors mounted on ceiling. Resulting image is an overlay of two sites. Podiums with 3D sensor to navigate virtual panoramas

In the centre of the room there will be two white podiums, about 1.2 m high. Each podium has a cylindrical sensor for three-dimensional navigation (this is basically a computer mouse that allows the participants to move in a virtual world). One podium has the label “Sabana de la Mar, República Dominicana” and the other one the label “Aguadilla, Puerto Rico”.

As participants move the sensors the images are navigated separately, creating a ghost-like aesthetic. Inside each podium is a Macintosh G4 computer connected to a projector, to audio speakers and to the 3D sensor.

The screen shows two photographic panoramas at the same time, that is, two sites overlaid one on top of the other. The panoramas are presented using QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) technology, which is a well-established format for visualising virtual spaces. When a participant on the Aguadilla podium turns the 3D sensor to the left automatically the Puerto Rican scene turns left, and vice versa. If the 3D sensor is pushed forward the corresponding panorama will zoom-in and if the sensor is pulled the image will zoom-out. In this way two people can “navigate” the virtual scenes in real-time and define what spaces and characters from each scene will be made to coincide in the representation. The result is a virtual folding of the two spaces.

As participants navigate the virtual scenes, relatively quiet voices from the interviews can be heard. The voices of people from both places are sometimes mixed, but there are also many silent sections so that the result is sparse and elegant. The movements of the sensors trigger the sound so there are no repetitive loops and no linear pre-programmed narratives.

The only common element in the two panoramic scenes is the “alien” presence of the bright light beam. This vector serves as a compass that allows participants to orient and disorient the representations. The light beam is also an artificial element that helps the piece to decline any pretension of documentary objectivity or naturalism. The beam can have a large number of interpretations, all of which are welcome, from facile associations with mystical deliverance to the violence of military anti-aircraft surveillance.

The piece departs from coincidences, disorientation, economic disparity, migration patterns, longing, historical paradoxes, solidarity…but always reminding us that it is a fake and stubborn exercise…this is why the light beam is so important: to “virtualize” the real sites that are being reconstructed virtually in the exhibition.

TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS:

The piece will use the new QTVR technique known as cubic mapping, which was released by Apple computer as part of the recently released QuickTime version 5. To see samples of this virtual tool please download QuickTime 5 at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Once it is installed in the computer visit the following page, where you will find many examples of virtual environments captured with panoramic photography

This piece will use 3D positional sound, hotspot recognition, 3D sensors for navigation and other advanced techniques. However, for this piece the technology is only a vehicle to achieve a conceptual and aesthetic effect and not an objective in itself. For this reason most of the equipment will be hidden from view, which also helps in terms of maintenance.

The navigation of the virtual worlds is easy to understand when a participant holds a sensor: no guides or personnel are needed to explain the piece. The sensor is quite sturdy and withstands moderate abuse from the public. Unlike multimedia or netart pieces that are designed to be seen individually on a computer, this installation provides a more collective, theatrical experience. One or two participants can control the virtual worlds at any given time but several people can experience the piece through the large screen projection.

Since the interviews are conducted in Spanish, the voices will be transcribed and translated, and presented as a booklet available at the gallery space.

Two full days should be reserved for setting up the piece. Striking will take two to three hours.

CREDITS:

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / Alanna Lockward: Production

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Direction, images, programming

Alanna Lockward: Curator, field research, catalog

Conroy Badger: QTVR Programming

Ana Parga: Image retouching

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The following are other borders to include in the project. In Spanish.

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Exquisite Immigrant – Indisciplinary Agent (Berlin-Santo Domingo)

Alanna Lockward is a Berlin and Santo Domingo based Dominican author, curator and filmmaker. She is the founding director of Art Labour Archives, an exceptional platform spiraling consistently on theory, political activism and art since 1996. Her interests are Caribbean marronage discursive and mystical legacies in time-based practices, critical race theory, decolonial aesthetics/aesthesis, Blak feminism and womanist ethics. Lockward is the author of Apremio: apuntes sobre el pensamiento y la creación contemporánea desde el Caribe (Cendeac, 2006), a collection of essays, the short novel Marassà & The Nothingness (Partridge Africa 2016) and Un Haití Dominicano. Tatuajes fantasmas y narrativas bilaterales (1994-2014), a compilation of her investigative work on the history and current challenges between both island-nations (Santuario 2014).

She was cultural editor of Listín Diario, research journalist of Rumbo magazine and columnist of the Miami Herald and is currently a columnist of Acento.com.do. Her essays and reviews have been widely published internationally by Afrikadaa, Atlántica, ARTECONTEXTO, Arte X Excelencias, Art Nexus, Caribbean InTransit and Savvy Journal. In 2014 she was the guest columnist of Camera Austria.

At the Museo de Arte Moderno (Santo Domingo) Lockward was appointed Director of International Affairs (1988) and was designated as Selection Jury of the XX Bienal Nacional de Artes Visuales (1996) and as Award Jury in its 26 edition (2011).

She is adjunct professor of audiovisual theory and investigative journalism at PUCMM and has been a guest lecturer at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, the Decolonial Summer School Middelburg, the University of Warwick, Dutch Art Institute and Goldsmiths University of London and has been a panelist at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (South Africa) and Duke, Columbia and Princeton Universities in the US. She is academic advisor of Transart Institute and is associated scholar of Young Scholars Network Black Diaspora and Germany. She has conceptualized and curated the groundbreaking trans-disciplinary meeting BE.BOP. BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS (2012-2016).

Alanna Lockward has been awarded by the Allianz Cultural Foundation, the Danish Arts Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers. Her first documentary project on Black Liberation Theology and the transnational history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) received the production prize FONPROCINE 2013.